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Attitude and Blame
You have to hand it to Sarah Palin. I don't mean you have to hand her the 2012 nomination. Nor do you have to hand her the $24.64 I overpaid for Going Rogue.
But let us give credit where credit card is due. Remember back in the 1990s when Hillary Clinton described herself as the Rorschach test for how people felt about the women's movement? Palin has become the latest test for shifting common ground and fault lines between sisterhood and sibling rivalry.
It's been like this since the Palintologists discovered her in Alaska and put her on the national ticket of the Grand Old (Boy) Party. She brought in-your-face words to conservatism: ``To any critics who say a woman can't think and work and carry a baby at the same time, I'd just like to escort that Neanderthal back to the cave.''
The GOP had been hibernating in that cave for decades. But the moose-killing former governor and mother of five made it politically incorrect for the ``family values'' crowd to trash working moms. She created a demilitarized zone in the culture wars. Republican women could juggle a BlackBerry and a breast pump. They, too, could do it all!
At the same, her appearance on the national ticket, after Clinton's defeat, challenged the Hillarylanders' comfy notion that voting for a woman was a feminist act in itself. Especially if the candidate was a pro-life conservative.
Now, we have the rogue elephant book tour, starring Sarah as she bashes McCainites and media. Her memory of the campaign fits a definition of political Alzheimer's: She's forgotten everything but the grudges.
Nevertheless, the Newsweek cover photo of the former vice presidential candidate in short-shorts -- originally taken for Runner's World -- is deliberately cheesy enough to make her most earnest opponent wince. Whoopi Goldberg, no Palin-ophile she, saw sexism in the photo op.
At the same time, even women who are profoundly tired of the fact that we have to be overqualified to win are turned off by a celebrity pol who still won't admit she was wildly underqualified.
The most authentic parts of the book are not those of a Palin as rogue but as a child and mother. And then there is a series of remarks straight from the Grrrl Power archives.
``I'm a product of Title IX,'' she writes. ``I was a direct beneficiary of the equal-rights effort. ``
She gives a shout-out to Gerry Ferraro and a coffee-date invitation to Hillary Clinton.
Then she nods respectfully to the founding mothers: ``Standing on the shoulders of women who had won hard-fought battles for things like equal pay and equal access, I grew up knowing I could be anything I wanted to be.''
Whoa, Nellie. Or rather, Whoa, Sarah. There's such a thing as too much self-esteem. The idea that you can be anything you want to be does not mean that you were ready to be vice president because you ``knew the history of the (Iraq) conflict to the extent that most Americans did.'' This inkblot got the message without the meaning.
Palin repeats the old movement quip that ``there's no better training ground for politics than motherhood.'' It's one (funny) thing to compare politicians to squabbling kids. It's another (serious) thing to believe anyone can leap from child care to commander in chief. (Memo to the ex-governor: Real moms don't quit.)
Sarah the Barracuda took the baton from the women's movement, but didn't get the message about passing it on.
At one point, she remembers thinking, ``You know what I could really use? A wife.'' This was a cute line in the 1970s. But as a politician in this century she doesn't offer any policy to help working mothers who need more than ``God and Todd.''
Going Rogue is short on self-reflection and long on attitude, including blame. But the author is also the female face of the Republican Party. Liz Cheney goes so far as to say that ``it would be nothing short of sexist to say that simply she is not a serious candidate.''
More than half of Republicans think Palin is qualified to be president. Well, the book includes a transcript of a beauty contest back in the 1980s when Sarah the Barracuda was a contender.
Asked whether she'd vote for a vice presidential or presidential candidate just because she was a woman, Palin answered, ``No, I would not vote for someone just because they were a woman.'' Sarah's lesson. Pass it on.
34 Comments so far
Show AllSioux Rose
Ignorance coupled with arrogance scares me in EITHER gender, and when attitude is applied as cover for all that's missing in the way of meaningful empathy, then Houston, we have a problem!
Freelance writers utlize an important tool known as "The Writer's Market" to find places for our written works. The fundamentalist Christian book publishing network has now co-opted the term "spiritual," and much that HAD been related to esoteric and mystical subject arenas has now been subsumed to fit under the conservative religious heading (or category).
Ralph Nader's founded group, Public Citizen, related some years back that the garbage industry was seeking to co-opt the term "organic" in order to use that designation as cover for its medley of toxic wastes.
It's evident how the term "natural" applied to food also serves as a smokescreen. Writers like George Lakoff have delineated how language has been subverted to serve the purposes of power-hungry elites. The definition for feminist is now being co-opted by dangerous persons like Sarah Palin who may entertain freedom for themselves, but will be first in line to narrow society's tolerance for any behaviors that don't fit in with THEIR program. In my view, feminism more closely resembles an awakened humanism and this woman with her lust for killing animals and promoting herself shamelessly, hardly qualifies. She does not speak in the name of love or unity, rather, she is an autocratic authoritarian who has no true understanding of the diversity intended for the human family. It's chilling to be told that half of Republicans would vote for such a one. As if our nation is not already laughing stock to the world, and so very armed and dangerous, and like Sarah, lacking in any capacity for reflection, introspection, or openness to ideas outside its established range. If our national story was on stage, it would have to qualify as a tragedy involving too many acts.
How can anyone run this country on GOP Snake Oil?
This country has always been run on snake-oil: propaganda. It's utilized because it's effective, unfortunately.
Hi Sioux Rose,
Once again the prose of your commentary surpasses that of the original. If there is any justice, then your use of "The Writer's Market" has borne good fruit.
It is indeed, "chilling to be told that half of Republicans would vote for such a one," especially when we consider that if she were to win the nomination far more than half of the Republicans would vote for her; and if the economy doesn't improve, she would likely win the presidency.
My question for today, however, is this: How could a person who combines intellectual narrowness and emotional vindictiveness be seriously considered by such a wide swathe of the American population? To begin answering such a "chilling" question I fall back on the Hindu and Buddhist concept of "sanskara."
Two definitions of the word are provided in Wikipedia.
1." the imprints left on the subconscious mind by experience in this or previous lives, which then color all of life, one's nature, responses, states of mind, etc." or, more simply:
2. "impressions derived from past experiences that form desires that influence future responses and behavior (karma)."
"Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad," is the way the ancient Greeks put it.
Leaving aside the issue of "previous lives," sanskara is the emotional substance, the habit patterns behind karma. "Live by the sword, die by the sword," not out of some magical retribution, but because violence builds up arrogance and a deadening of soul which lead to heedlessness. The Quaker John Woolman, for example, noticed way back in 1750 that the institution of slavery in the South had bred a character structure of arrogance. And the pattern of emotional buildup, I suspect, is not linear, but follows an accelerating curve leading to a tipping point.
In the United States, our sanskara is coming due. Centuries of genocide, slavery, imperialism, militarism and disregard for the poor have created the popularity of "necroporn" shows like CSI, in which brutal and sadistic murder is followed by dissection of body parts, the vampire craze, and the lust for apocalypse. In all of these genres there is a stunted, grim emotional monotone, which does not challenge the emotional range of a population raised on 4 hours of television a day, rather than on play and sociability. (Experiments have shown, by the way, that Mexicans are better at recognizing the true emotion of a picture of a face than are Americans.)
A population which needs to be trained to accept an economy of increasingly obscene wealth and poverty needs also to be trained to reject logic and science and to embrace irrationality; and both trainings are funded from the same bank accounts.
A culture and a history which stunts the emotional and intellectual range and sensitivity of millions has obviously entered a downward spiral. It elected the false fatherliness of a Reagan (his children rejected him) the phony good old boy W (assisted, of course, by massive fraud); and, if current trends continue, might even venture upon a Palin - although a slightly more intelligent but equally devastating equivalent is more likely.
Our job, in the meantime, is to work to enlarge the range of our emotional and intellectual lives. We don't know yet whether we can re-steer the ship or whether we will have to take to our lifeboats; but either way, we know from the laws of sanskara, that nothing that we do is ever completely lost.
Sioux Rose
MR. BERK: A very inspired "WOW" to you! Great post! What could I add other than to hazard my impressions relative to the reasons why a large segment of the population gravitates to someone so wontonly mean-spirited as Sarah. Isn't it so much easier to hate, to find a target to blame rather than to do the intensive soul work of improving one's own being? We all have our blindspots, those areas that we have incarnated to work on. The vast majority would leave these wounds to further fester, especially when the mass media provides a powerfully hypnotic tool that so effectively diverts the energy that should be directed at self-work towards a target "suitable" for collective angst. There remains a part of me that can be a snobbish New York intellectual, and yet here I am living in the South, the Bible Belt at that, and renting a few rural properties that FORCE me into engagement with those of a less educated ilk. This location prompts my practice of compassion, an enlarging of tolerance, some attempt for me to understand the mindset that indeed gravitates to one such as Sarah.
The fellow I've dated off and on for two years comes from a very conservative background and I genuinely like his father, a real "fix the problem" kind of hardworking guy who unfortunately is a dyed-in-the-wool Republican. He recently waxed lyrical about Ms. Palin and offered, "She took it upon herself to make sure that every kid in Alaska has money to go to college." I presume this reconstruction of Sarah's access (as governor) to oil money was a product of Fox News. If advertisers can make the deadly habit of smoking look good & sexy, and can give the human embodiment of Jabba the Hut excessive air time, it has no problem turning Sarah into the messianic princess there to liberate the quiet desperation of the neglected right wing masses.
I think it takes great inner strength to Witness for Truth these days. A generation is being raised that may never be able to discern Truth from the fictions espoused in media if those of us who represent (or champion) a rival ideology are never seen or heard from. It often seems that the elites are waiting for the last Indigenous and final independent thinkers to just die out. I also wonder with all the hoopla around the "Happiness Studies" at universities if they may not begin to define serious thinkers as those encumbered by a mental disease, and then use the vast powers of the state to see to it that we remain "happily" drugged for the remainder of our existences so that the powerful truths we might otherwise utter never gets stated at all. Thankfully the long legacy of the soul and its life-to-life engagements on the earth plane leave just enough etchings of Truth that the Light of understanding can never entirely go out regardless of the inroads into ignorance fostered by the elites and their powerful control of mainstream media.
I would love to sit around a table with a few decent bottles of wine discussing this subject with you and a few others from this forum. In the meaintime, I am going to print your post. It's a great one, a keeper! I'm grateful that my words catalyzed your sterling response! Enjoy the holiday, friend.
Thank you Sioux Rose,
Your table and wine sound good.
You write: "Isn't it so much easier to hate, to find a target to blame?"
Well, that depends. All of us have self-centered or violent impulses, and all of us have generous, co-operative instincts. This is true even among chimpanzees. (Read the great primatologist, Frans de Waal. I read his "Good Natured: The Origins of Right and Wrong in Humans and Other Animals." His other intriguing titles include: "Chimpanzee Politics: Power and Sex among Apes," and "Primates and Philosophers: How Morality Evolved.") It's also true among dolphins. Among intelligent, social animals aggression and co-operation are both evolutionarily necessary. (Older chimp females mediate between fighting males by kissing both combatants.)
Which one will prevail? That depends on the culture, on the degree of stress, and on the degree of stress which each culture applies. One thing we know among humans is that the more economic inequality, the more stress, the worse health, crime and every other social disfunction. You could read John Crace on "The Theory of Everything," in the UK Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/mar/12/equality-british-society
or, more extensively in the website: http://www.equalitytrust.org.uk/
But here is our biggest historical problem. If more unequal societies breed more stress, they also breed more irrationality and selfishness. Which is why we have not yet had an extensive socialist democracy. The more a nation is in NEED of social reconstruction, the more irrationality and selfishness arise, and thus the ability of elites to manipulate the population, ala Naomi Klein's "Shock Doctrine." That is not the whole story of course. There is also great heroism and sacrifice in times of emergency. Hence Rebecca Solnit's recent book, "A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster ."
Manipulability or solidarity? Which happens more often? And which story has the most social juice? "The Shock Doctrine" has 416 reviews on Amazon. "A Paradise Built in Hell" has 5 (though published a year later, August '09).
The fact that so many people under stress become more irrational and manipulable may explain why we have had so many Hitlers, Mussolinis, Pol Pots, etc; and, back to our original topic, more Sarah Palins. Can we reverse this trend? In a world of nuclear weapons and ecological catastrophe, we have no choice if we are to save the human race. Struggles for social change must be accompanied by "broadening" (as the Buddhists say) of the emotions. Can we do it? We have no choice but to try.
Warm regards,
Laurence of Berkeley
Sioux Rose
Laurence: The "hate" comment was sort of flippant on my part, but you definitely defined its psychological basis of origin. I remember a freak ice storm that hit the Northeast and neighbors who'd hardly spoken worked together so that all could survive. That choice of working together towards common survival or competing for the appearance of last remaining goods is the one many will face if times get tougher; and based on all the reprobate policy decisions, corporate-influenced of course, that are taking place, the inevitability of public access to smaller and smaller bits of the grand pie ("let them eat cake/crumbs" style) will assert with greater fervor.
Every spiritual discipline and oracle speaks to the interior divide that exists in every person, the imaginary line between narrow self-interest and the call to serve our better angels. What any individual, no less a collective of individuals does or will do is up for grabs. The Bahai faith sees the teacher as one of the highest callings, and many spiritual leaders have explained we teach by the example of how we live. The media, which owns a magically powerful tool so adept at socializing persons has largely worked the "lower muscles" of the mind to normalize the worst behaviors. How many will prove able to overcome that conditioning at the point of personal trial is where the great "if" resides. I believe humanity is fast approaching a crossroads and it has cosmic and prophetic implications, added to those evident on the mundane sphere in the form of rabid resource depletion, the dangers of pollution, escalating violence 'round the globe, and localized (in the home of the "free") poverty. These are times that test our souls, and much in the way of these hardships has been generated directly from within the human pool, although too many blame 'god the father' for the collapsed conditions of our times.
Hello Sioux Rose,
What is best about this blog is not that anyone has the final answer, but that we stimulate each other to further thought. And that you do well.
Since the media are DESIGNED to dumb us down, to exercise our "lower muscles" so that we don't have the scope to choose alternative social models, and since, as the early 20th century critic A.J. Liebling said, "Freedom of the press belongs to those who have the money to own one;" IT IS UP TO US to construct our own face to face networks to compete with their media Networks. We don't have a military industrial complex, we have a military industrial ENTERTAINMENT complex, the digital inheritor of the Roman Circus. Which direction the world will take as our crises deepen will depend on what kind of alternatives we can construct, starting now.
It is imperative, therefore, for us to build schools and forums for organizers, both face to face in individual cities, and by internet across the nation and the world. I've been working on presenting a proposal to Common Dreams to ask them to be the venue for an online organizers forum.
Our dilemma is the same as when Benjamin Franklin stated it. "We must all hang together, or we will all hang separately." Franklin was a great community organizer. In his youth he organized "juntos" of twelve men (alas) each who talked philosophy, politics and business, and also played and drank together. He would never allow these groups to grow larger than 12. When others wanted to join he told them to start their own, and they did. Later on these "juntos" were the bases of hospitals, libraries, insurance co-ops and citizen militias (which elected their own officers).
Our job these days is harder than in the 18th century. The time we spend in front of screens has led to a deterioration of our basic social skills. Can our schools and forums reteach these; listening and asking questions, for example, instead of lecturing and orating? If we can, then we will be able to make an impact in unions, neighborhoods, schools and churches. IT'S UP TO US. That's the button I wear on my sweater.
Yours in solidarity,
Laurence
Sioux Rose
Good evening, Laurence: Certainly the idea of a CD addition that involves a forum of activities is a good one. I had inquired about some kind of CD convention where some of us can meet and brainstorm, form committees, operate as a sort of US version of "The World Social Forum." No response as yet.
Although in reference to your comment, "the time we spend in front of screens has led to a deterioration of our basic social skills," may or may not be true, there is something to be said about REAL TIME activity. The younger generations who are so accustomed to plugging into each other's world electronically may be wiring parts of their brains we don't yet recognize. They may have capacities to intuit information our generation learned from books and the "heavier lifting" of direct and dedicated mental activity.
I know that I had the choice of being more of a corporate yuppie and instead opted for a simple life where my time belonged to me. I am always conscious of time as the singular medium over which none of us has final say; and by that I'm speaking to our inevitable mortality. So I try to do something useful every day, at least one thing that benefits someone else while remaining up to date on goals and projects. Many people trade their time for money and think one day they will have time, perhaps when they retire, to do all the things, pursue all the dreams they put off. I think making the most of our time NOW is the key. Time is a non-negotiable resource. And while some say "You only live once," I generally edit the comment to "You only live once in EACH lifetime." We are still intended to make the most of its lessons & opportunities.
Just as our congress reps only represent the big money interests, it was the sell-out of the PUBLIC'S airwaves to big corporations that usurped the public's understanding of all the vital issues. A restitution of the Fairness Doctrine along with putting Glass-Steagall into place would help many matters. It's not so much the need for new law as much honoring those already bravely won and surreptitiously stripped of meaning. Of course making citizens aware of the multi-nuanced nature of the various and sundry heists that have effectively disabled THEIR democracy would be a natural place to begin if we wish to see our nation become the phoenix destined to rise from the present ashes. Fortunately ideas and ideals can never burn away! Thanks for keeping YOUR torch lit. Peace, Sioux
"How could a person who combines intellectual narrowness and emotional vindictiveness be seriously considered by such a wide swathe of the American population?"
The answer is "because she is right for the times" reflecting the limited interests and vindictiveness of a significant section of the population.
How could anyone vote for Reagan? He was an intellectual lightweight but had personal charm. With Reagan (and Thatcher) the destructive brand of capitalism we have seen for the last 30 years was started as trickle down economics. Now Palin as President will bring Reaganism full circle and preside over the complete destruction brought by this aberrant strain of capitalism that considers not its social or environmental effects and so sows the seeds of its own destruction.
She would certainly be a disaster as President. But Obama is not turning out too well either. She would do nothing to hinder the Israelis from building new settlements. Neither would Obama so far. She would extend the National Emergency Powers...so has Obama. She would curtail abortion rights. Obamas' health care bill would do the same. And she looks really, really great in a running outfit. Hot!
I'm sorry kayaker, but it's hard for most of us to imagine how bad things can really get.
A Republican president and congress would not have given us a stimulus plan and would not be considering a further jobs program. A Republican would not allow the Bush tax cuts to expire, although that is a pathetic gesture compared to what is really needed. The economy would be much closer to the verge of 1929, although that may happen anyway, just a bit later. A Sarah Palin would not be talking to the Chinese about lowering greenhouse gasses. (Although, again, that also may be too little, too late). Republicans would not have stood up for internet neutrality - so goodbye Common Dreams.
There are differences. The most serious crime of Barack Obama is that by sleeping and drifting within the corporate consensus, he is preparing the way for something much worse.
"More than half of Republicans think Palin is qualified to be president." Unfortunately, by their standards, she is. When did the bar get so low? When did the country get so dumbed-down? When did ignorance become the new cool? With all its wealth and resources, America is the laughing stock of the universe. While China's politicians are busy preparing their country for world leadership within this century, busy preparing their economy to become number 1 in the world, busy preparing their children to become scientists and leaders, in the U.S., politicians are arguing over abortion, gay rights, and an eviscerated public option. What a bunch of losers.
More than half of Republicans think Palin is qualified to be president.
In the Unlimited Stupidity of America, this is absolutely true and couldn't be anything other than absolutely true. I am shocked, shocked that 100% of reactionaries and fascists don't think she's qualified.
Wow, what an impressive piece of investigative journalism with in-depth analysis. The subject matter is so under-reported as well. What a brave and intelligent journalist to publish such a cutting-edge story. I learned so much important information.
It helps to add a tag for those who aren't sure whether you're serious.
Indeed, somewhat of a fluff piece on a fluff - er... never mind.
who?
People would be very surprised at how many American women are right-wing and anti-choice. You even see this among younger women who are educated and have prestigious jobs. Most of these women come from affluent homes, and who do the affluent usually vote for?
Not only that, but there are simply a bunch of women who aren't liberated. They feel that the Big Alpha Men of The Right "protect" them from crime and terror. They insist on going out and paying the bills while the women stay at home, and there still are a lot of women out there who long for that, who don't think they should do anything else with their life but be a good little wife and mother. Unfortunately many women don't feel they can afford to do anything but shack up with a man because he can be a provider. This is compounded by the fact that many of these women are unwed mothers.
Sarah Palin sort of turns all of this on its head by being a woman and a breadwinner in her household. She's also not at all an intellectual and trades on her looks, something women are taught to do in America, because patriarchy demands it.
I think Palin is a heroine to the good little wives in her own way simply because she has penetrated the glass ceiling without shaking up the status quo. She's pro-war, pro-life, pro-gun, and pro-capitalism, which means that things won't change much for anyone. And that suits a suburban coffee klatcher just fine.
There's also a strain of women in America that really isn't that well-off, yet works too hard without realizing it and blames everything on people who don't work hard enough and thinks America's problems are to be solved by bootstrapping. Palin appeals to these women also, the ones that don't get that they're being duped.
I doubt Palin has a chance in hell though. She'll embarass herself enough to ensure a 2nd term for everyone's favorite mild Republican of Kenyan descent.
who?
First base.
With Wall Street running over everybody who earns less than 20 million a year, millions starving, tens of thousands dieing each year because of lack of healthcare, out of control global warming, and probably the most corrupt government in history, why is CommonDreams running all of these articles about a person that doesn't even rate in comparison to the yucky stuff you scrape off the bottom of your shoe when step in the wrong place?
Obama has broken all of his promises. Transparency? Visitors logs to OUR house, the White House, are still secret, as under Bush. The AfPak wars are increasing, and we are fortifying Colombia to go after Venezuela, Bolivia, El Salvador, and any other country which wants economic independence from us, or who has leaders elected which are not CIA-approved. Remember, we got Bush twice in fraudulent elections....and Obama, a two-year Junior Senator appoints Cheney's Dark-Side General McChrystal to run the war in AFghanistan...all the while, trying to convince Progressives that he is running a "kinder and gentler war", so that the Progressives will feel good about the re-branding of our National Security State under Obama, and their consciences will be eased by their silence, or muted protest, or their "demands" that we leave Afghanistan on a "timetable". We see how well the timetable withdrawal the Democrats championed worked in Iraq. Sure, Guantanamo will not be closed as promised. Instead, we still have hundreds held there, while a few are tried in show trials. This is classic Modified Limited Hangout...give them a bone, and they will forget the big story. The big story is the secret torture prisons in Eastern Europe, and the thousands tortured, and murdered there, and in Iraq prisons, and other facilities. Does ANYONE not think that Obama is not simply the slicker face of the same National Security State which has been in place since 1947? Americans should look at the reality of their country with unvarnished, non-rose colored glasses. Only then is change possible. War continues, and increases in the Middle East, and there are still 128K troops there. Obama said he would remove all COMBAT troops...but Progressives heard in their heads that he would remove ALL troops. These words are Psyops, and are designed to fool you. In reality, the Vatican-sized "Embassy" in Iraq will be protected by 58K troops...we have not left South Korea, and we will not leave Iraq...as Alan Greenspan said in his autobiography "Why don't they just admit that they invaded Iraq for the oil?"
Maybe for your next article you can do a hard-hitting story about the shortage of graham-crackers in elementary schools. This story is so main-stream and bland as to be worse than irrelevant. Don't be distracted by this, people, and remember that the Democratic Congress recently voted for 106B to continue Bush's War's, really the National Security State Wars, and that President Obama signed off on it..while calling Afghanistan a War of Necessity. 48 million on food stamps in this country...now, there is a story. The destruction of the Middle Class and Manufacturing...now, there is a story. Now, Palin is no gem, but, ask yourself, when ALL of the Media jumps on a person, what function are they serving?
1. To distract you from Real Issues
2. To distract you from any portion of her message which might be real
I can't stand Palin because she is an uninformed loud-mouth who glories in her ignorance, not because she is a female uniformed loudmouth who glories in her ignorance.
I can't stand Beck and Limbaugh for the same reasons, despite their purported ownership of penis's
who?
Midlife Transition:
Losing your sense of purpose (I quit!)
Boredom with activities that previously held great interest and dominated your life (I quit!)
Awareness that you're beginning to show signs of aging (plastic surgery)
You ask; “What about me now, when is it my turn?”
Your lifestyle changes. You spend more.
Mood swings, confusion, sees self as victim, blames spouse/others for life's problems...
...
Who the hell does that sound like?
The moose thing is silly. (Are most democrats vegetarians and do they work for animal rights? Of course not.)
Unqualified? GWB was president for eight years. Obviously whomever is President, it doesn't really matter.
Killing is killing. Especially when it comes to war, of which Obama, the democrats in reality, don't have a problem with. Murder & looting is one thing republicans obviously don't have the market on. We all know that now.
The cold-hard fact is this: after Obama's first year, there is finally, undeniable proof that there is no difference in democrats and republicans. Really. There isn't. None. Zilch.
You are so cynical..of course there is a difference between Republicans and Democrats....they are spelled differently.....):
"Unqualified? GWB was president for eight years. Obviously whomever is President, it doesn't really matter."
Spoken like a true nit wit. If I hear this kind of stupidity flaunted as wisdom again, I think I'll toss my lunch.
It most definitely DOES matter who is in the office. Do you think you would have John Freaking Roberts as the head justice on the SCOTUS if Gore had been elected (which he WAS, W was APPOINTED)? Do you REALLY think that we would have gone from a Clinton WH with it's emphasis on keeping tabs on REAL terrorists to a Gore WH which ignores that legacy? Do you think that Gore would have lied us into a war in Iraq? It most definitely DOES matter who is in office.
Think of where we would be right now if McCain and Caribou Barbie had been put in office. The words "massively fucked" come to mind. It DOES matter. Now go away and quit spreading ignorance.
In reality, there is no difference.
And if Gore were any kind of man, he'd have fought for himself. In the end, as bad and evil as Cheney was, Lieberman had all the makings of a killer himself.
I'm not bestowing blessings upon Sarah Palin, but we all know (with exceptions to hacks and other faux progressives), it makes no difference within the big picture. Money & war. Obama/Bush, or Palin. Its the same results every single time.
Talk about shooting moose. Or being able to see the Russia from Alaska. Or her style. Or whatever nonsense-of-the-day you choose. Blah, blah, blah.
The cold, hard fact is, the election is over, and if you guys (supposedly on the "left") don't do something about your man in the White House, you're gonna find yourself out on the street (again) in 2012. Sad thing is, its probably too late anyway at this point. Obama has failed in every single avenue. Every single one. And he hasn't undone anything the Boy Idiot put in place. In some cases, he's made things worse.
That's the truth.
Now, go do something positive, maybe about your president's warmongering and shoveling cash to criminals while the working poor in this country get screwed.
People in the Media know what they are supposed to talk about...and what not. They are not supposed to talk about the entirety of the Black Budget...or even admit it's existence. They are not supposed talk about the actual number of Iraqui dead, or the actual number of displaced persons in that country (4 million out of 27 million..as a result of our illegal invasion). They must not question the official 911 Commission report, or risk being called Holocaust Deniers (as Zbigniew did on the Rachel Maddow show). No, the Mainstream Media will not talk about what we are doing to the democratically elected Hugo Chavez (contrasting his elections to that of George Bush (Both Elections). Chavez does not send troops to his neighbors...he is in solidarity with Evo Morales of Bolivia, their native-born, duly elected President. No, there is a whole host of subjects which will not be discussed in the Mainstream Media...instead, we read the below story about Venezuela...how bad it is, they are down 4.5% of GDP from last year...while we are in a Depression, and a tail-spin. While Ford invests 2.6 Billion to build cars in South America...but, not here.
This is self-censorship...people know where the boundaries are...and, if anyone slips up, they are Rosie O'Donnelled right off Mainstream Media (The View).....
Ironically, the unvarnished, unspun, non-modified limited hangout news can be seen on Al Jazeera, Russia Today, and read in Fidel Castro's writings....not for nothing did Hugo Chavez say to President Obama as a parting comment when he saw him......"Are you are you a prisoner?" (of the Military Industrial Complex, CIA, the National Security State)
good post
Palin is selling a lifestyle too.
"Ladies, you can have it all. I make lots of money and went places with little effort, a pretty face, and wink. Yet, I still have a family and a man at home."
That kind of thing appeals to corporate women, who are already conservative due to their income bracket.
Ellen, next time you write on a topic, might be a good idea to know what you think about that topic before beginning.